The Vermillion: The fight for our ecosystem cannot ignore indigenous tribes and traditions

Since the global climate strike earlier this month and the impassioned speech by Greta Thunberg at the 2019 UN climate action summit sparking nationwide conversations, the fate of our planet is on everyone’s mind; and if it isn’t, it ought to be. We’re currently in the middle of a massive global extinction. In the midst of these discussions surrounding how to protect our land, we’ve been ignoring some integral voices that have been advocating for years: indigenous groups. Despite comprising less than 5% of the world’s population, indigenous people protect 80% of global biodiversity.

A study published in the journal Environmental Science and Policy compared levels of biodiversity in thousands of areas in Australia, Brazil and Canada, the first of its kind to compare biodiversity and land management on such a vast scale. Researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) compared 15,621 tropical areas across three continents, with great variations across climate, species and geography.